Pioneer reflections

BRIGHAM CITY -- The proximity of the historic Box Elder Tabernacle, at 251 S. Main St., to the newly announced LDS temple, at 250 S. Main St., is causing residents to reflect on their pioneer temple-building past.

Although well-known pioneer church architect Truman O. Angell's architectural prowess never brought a temple to Box Elder County, his enduring works can be found throughout the state. Not only was he architect of the Logan Temple, Salt Lake Temple, St. George Temple and the Manti Temple, he also drafted the Box Elder Tabernacle.

The tabernacle's steep buttresses, octangular spires and arched windows will stand guard over the new Brigham City Temple as it is erected just west across the street.

It is fitting that th etemple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should be built in the same city where Angell's daughter made her home, say descendents of Sarah Jane Angell Tolman Johnson.

"You can know Sarah Jane would be thrilled about a temple in Brigham City," said her great-granddaughter Dawn Tolman Mills, who grew up in Honeyville and volunteered as an ordinance worker in the Saint George Temple for nine years.

Sarah Jane, born in 1834 in Lima, N.Y., was the oldest child of Angell and his wife Polly. Along with many other early converts to the church, Sarah Jane traveled with her parents to Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Ill., before arriving in Salt Lake City. At each place, her father worked on temples in some capacity before being officially called as church architect in 1850.

Shortly after Sarah Jane's 1851 marriage to Benjamin Hewitt Tolman, the couple was called as among the first settlers of Box Elder County and made their home for a time in a section of the Old Fort there.

Their oldest child, Benjamin Hewitt Tolman II, is said to be one of the first white children born in Box Elder. Sarah Jane had two more children before her husband died in 1857.

She remarried in 1860, and had seven more children with husband Jarvis Johnson before she died giving birth to her second set of twins in 1869. Seven years after Sarah Jane was buried in the Brigham City Cemetery, construction of the Box Elder Tabernacle began in her hometown.

All of her 10 children were born in Brigham City, where Utah's 14th temple will be built.

"I'm sure my great-grandmother (Sarah Jane) would be excited, just as everyone is now," said Ila Tolman Jensen, a lifelong resident of Box Elder County and an Ogden Temple ordinance worker for more than eight years. "What a neat surprise. We are certainly pleased."

Sarah Jane's father was likely pleased to draft the Box Elder Tabernacle in the area his daughter chose to call home during her married life.

The tabernacle is "an effective blending of Gothic and Neo Classic Motifs," according to a tabernacle guide pamphlet. The Box Elder Tabernacle was officially completed in 1890, three years after Angell's death.

Angell outlived his daughter, dying in 1887 before the Salt Lake Temple, said to be his most marvelous work, was completed.

"As long as the Salt Lake Temple stands, there will be a magnificent monument to the patience, skill and dedication of its architect," Wendell Ashton wrote about Truman O. Angell.

At Angell's funeral, Daniel H. Wells said, "Brother Angell needs no monument at his grave, for as long as the Salt Lake Temple stands, that is monument enough for him."

And as long as the church continues to build temples, its members will look back to the pioneers that settled the state and laid the foundation to their religion.